Using opinion polls to guide national policy and official actions is a dicey proposition at best. Regardless of the claims by social research companies, it is fundamentally questionable to ascribe the views of some 1,200 or 1,500 randomly selected—and anonymous—respondents to the entire population of 180-million Filipinos.
Still, perhaps in the absence of a better tool, politicians give credence to these polls, praising them and basking in their results when their findings are favorable, and playing them down when their verdict is less flattering.
In the last three years, this administration has ridden the wave of favorable poll results, showing the President enjoying historically high approval and trust ratings. Each time survey results were released, a Palace statement would a) cite these as proof that the President enjoyed a strong mandate from the people; or b) use these to promise redoubled efforts to maintain the public’s trust.
It was a break in the pattern, then, when Malacañang this week brushed off the decrease in President Rodrigo Duterte’s approval and trust ratings in a Pulse Asia survey in September.
The President’s spokesman, Salvador Panelo, said in a press briefing that the Chief Executive’s 78-percent approval rating is still high even if it is 7 percentage points lower than his rating in June.
“Surveys fluctuate depending on when they get them. If it is taken at a time when there are controversies, it may affect the survey results,” he told reporters in a press briefing.
There have certainly been enough of those.
Conducted from Sep. 16 to 22, the survey came amid a Senate investigation into alleged irregularities in the national penitentiary that saw the early release of almost 2,000 inmates convicted of heinous crimes under the Good Conduct Time Allowance Law. Worse, the Senate hearings revealed a syndicate of crooked cops that resold illegal drugs seized during police operations, or used them to plant evidence on suspects to bolster their track record of “success.”
The survey also coincided with the resurgence of polio in the country, a disease that had not been seen for 19 years, as well as the spread of African swine fever, which can wipe out the hog industry if it is not contained.
Amid all this, there was also the government’s tepid response to Chinese aggression in the West Philippine Sea, and the continuing breakdown of the public transport system.
The Palace may be right in saying that a 78-percent approval rating is still high, but clearly this is no time for complacency, regardless of whether or not you believe in surveys.